Fireplaces on Snow.—­On very deep snow, a hearth has to be made of a number of green logs, upon which the fire may be made. (See “Esquimaux Cooking Lamp.”)

Cooking-fires.—­See chapter on “Cooking.”

Fires in the early Morning.—­Should your stock of fuel consist of large logs and but little brushwood, keep all you can spare of the latter to make a blaze, when you get up to catch and pack the cattle in the dark and early morning.  As you travel on, if it be bitter cold, carry a firebrand in your hand, near your mouth, as a respirator—­it is very comforting; then, when the fire of it burns dull, thrust the brand for a few moments in any tuft of dry grass you may happen to pass by, which will blaze up and give a new life to the brand.

FOOD.

The nutritive Elements of Food.—­Many chemists have applied themselves in recent years, to discover the exact percentage of nutriment contained in different substances, and to determine the minimum nutriment on which human life can be supported.  The results are not very accordant, but nevertheless a considerable approximation to truth has been arrived at.  It is now possible to tell whether a proposed diet has any great faults of excess or deficiency, and how to remedy those faults.  But it also must be recollected that the stomach is an assimilating machine of limited performance, and must be fed with food that it can digest; it is not enough that the food should contain nutritious matter, if that matter should be in an indigestible form.  Burke and Wills perished from sheer inability to digest the seeds upon which the Australian savages lived; and Gardiner’s party died of starvation in Tierra del Fuego, because they could not digest the shell-fish which form a common article of diet of the natives of that country.  The question of diet must then be limited to food that is perfectly digestible by the traveller.  It remains to learn how much nourishment is contained in different kinds of digestible food.  Dr. Smith has recently written an elaborate essay on this subject, applying his inquiries chiefly to the food of the poor in England; but for my more general purpose, as it is impossible to do justice to a large and imperfectly understood subject, in the small space I can give to it, it will be better that I should reprint the results given in my previous edition.  These are principally extracted from a remarkable paper by Dr. Christison, inserted in the Bluebook Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Crimean matters, in which the then faulty dietary of our soldiers was discussed.  It appears 1st, that a man of sedentary life can exist in health on seventeen ounces per day of real nutriment; that a man engaged in active life requires fully twenty-eight ounces per day; and, during severe labour, he requires thirty ounces, or even more. 2ndly, that this nutriment must consist of three-quarters, by weight, of one class